Making new friends

7/14/08 Monday
I went to the landfill, as I often do on Monday’s, on the way back I saw a crowd of emergency vehicles at the scene of an accident in front of the Town and Country service station on I-20 and FM 137 in Stanton. I don’t usually do this, and generally don’t think much of those who do, but I turned around to see what happened. It is a bad wreck between two pickups, one a Halliburton vehicle and the other was someone’s personal truck. That one had the worst damage. It almost looked like it was a head on collision. The passenger side door had already been removed and they were busy cutting the drivers door off when I went by. Whoever was in it is hurt bad. I said a silent prayer for them. These things always bring up deep emotions as I wonder about the family and what hardships this will bring. I considered getting the camera out I always keep in the glove compartment out to take pictures or a short video of the scene, but that thought only lasted a second. While I know this could be something the newspaper and television news could use it just seemed morbid so I didn’t.

I can’t believe it’s already 2:30. I got out to work early but tire out quickly so it seems like I haven’t gotten much done at all. Can’t remember much of what I did though I transplanted some of the melon plants and put fertilizer on lots of plants. I hope I did the fertilizer right. There was a five gallon bucket I had mixed fertilizer and water in two or three weeks ago. I don’t remember how much or what kind but know that a lot of it didn’t dissolve and had settled to the bottom of the bucket. So I just poured a little in the watering can we have and mixed it with a lot of water, about a ten to one mixture. That I poured on the bases of plants and then watered the plants. I hope it works and doesn’t burn the plants like I’ve read about.

I see that I didn’t write anything about Saturday so figure it would be good to do so now while it’s in my mind. We went to the farmer’s market to sell for the first time. I picked lots (at least I thought it was lots) of blackeyed peas and took them along with a bunch of plastic store bags. We got there at ten till nine. The market is supposed to open at nine but there was already a crowd there. We sold out in five minutes. I didn’t know what to charge so I just told folks to give us whatever they felt like. One old guy looked at me and said “Your kidding!!!”. “No” I replied and added “In fact if you need it you can have it for free”. This threw him off so he took three bags and handed me ten dollars watching my eyes. I thanked him sincerely and he stopped for a minute… then handed me fifteen more dollars. We were amazed at how many people wanted peas and were willing to pay a good price for them. In trying to figure out what to charge we had looked in the produce section of some grocery stores and failed to find fresh blackeyed peas at all. One lady at the market had hurried over when we were just setting up and wanted to buy everything we had. Seeing that others wanted some as well she decided to not take them all so they could get some. She told us that blackeyed peas were like gold and that she had paid thirty six dollars for a bushel basket of them last year. Next year we will plant a whole lot more.

One lady that wasn’t able to get some was happy when we told her she could come out and pick her own. She asked where we were and come to find out doesn’t live too far away. She asked if she should pay now and that confused me as things often do. I didn’t know if she had already got a bag or if she wanted to pay for what she planned to pick so just said she didn’t have to. When she walked away I asked Cherie what had just happened. She didn’t know cause she had been busy talking to someone else.

We didn’t see any reason to stay after selling out so headed back home. It was nice to meet new people but I had already had a rough morning and was pretty slow as it was. When we got home there was a car in the drive. “Who could that be?” we wondered. I walked out back and there was a lady picking blackeyed peas. “Can I help you?” I asked when I got close. She was the lady from the farmer’s market but of course I didn’t recognize her at all. Facial recognition is one of the big problems I have from the brain injury. Cherie came out and recognized her right away and let me know who she was.

During the conversation we learned that they have horses. I asked about obtaining horse manure and she said we could have as much as we wanted. After she finished picking peas we followed her over to their place. It’s a nice little homestead well off the beaten path. They are doing lots of work and have lots of plans for the place like we do for ours. We sat and talked for quite a while. Pam has MS, which is something I’ve become very familiar with through helping Wayne. We talked about God and some of the experiences she has had in various churches. Boy was that familiar, the same kind of things we have experienced in our lives. It’s sad to see and hear about those who are supposed to be the representatives of Christ here on earth but who’s lives bear little or no resemblance to what I read in the bible. In some cases it was the misdirected zeal of those who had been taught false doctrine in the Pentecostal part of the church but in most cases there was pride, arrogance, self righteousness, and the blindness that those things bring. I think they will become good friends who we can relate with very well. I look forward to seeing that happen.

It’s 3:20 now and I’ve got to get going. I bought a trailer ball while at Harbor Freight that should fit Chuck and Lillian’s trailer but it won’t fit the truck so I must get another one. They will let me use the trailer to pick up the horse poop, which I want to do today so got to get moving. I’m not about to drive all the way to Odessa to return a seven dollar trailer ball so will run to Walmart.

The satellite is running slow again. Yesterday I saw another car parked on the side of the road and when they saw me they took off. When I checked it seems that someone tapped into our Linksys did a lot of downloading again. When I told Cherie she said “Boy, word gets out fast”. It seems so. Both of the cars I’ve seen are older and not in real good shape. Not that we have any room to talk because that describes what we drive, it’s just an observation.